We live in a world of strange storms and unstable conditions. A guy I know, one of those intrepid, far-flung traveler types, tells me that over the past five years he has experienced far more frequent and more severe episodes of extraordinary turbulence.
Years ago, this might have made me afraid to fly. But today I’m much more sanguine, or at least fatalistically resigned. If nothing else, I can take comfort in the notion that I’m likely statistically safer forty thousand feet in the skies than enmeshed in the shenanigans going on down below.
As a fairly frequent airplane traveler, I’m always a little bit uplifted and reassured by the pre-take off safety demonstration. I like being assured that it is “unlikely” that the cabin will become de-pressurized, or that the plane will lose its engines and fall like an asteroid into the oceans below. It’s nice to think that, should some random (and unlikely!) cataclysm occur, my fellow passengers and I will react with poise and reason. We will remember the flight crew’s instructions and follow the protocol. When the oxygen masks come tumbling down, we will calmly adjust our own before looking to assist our families and our fellow passengers. We will listen for directions and assume the best practices position for our optimal chance of survival on impact. Should emergency deplaning become necessary, we will proceed in an orderly fashion, following the illuminated floor strips towards the exit. There’s something whimsically retro about all of this. It seems to harken back to some (probably non-existent) golden age of air travel, a time of civility and decorum. To transatlantic cocktails and pleasant conversation in the soothing glow of the dimmed cabin lights.
Lately, I have to confess, this is a notion I’m trying harder and harder to hang onto. Because it’s been increasingly feeling to me like the global air-ship we are all traveling on is about to hit a pocket of turbulence that could very well send it spinning wildly out of control. The clouds have been gathering for a long time now, as dense with portents as a stock market report or a pack of tarot cards. Radars are flashing warnings of bomb cyclones and hard rain, and most of us don’t have underground bunkers stocked with rare vintages, designer shoes, and shock-collared servants to keep us safe, warm, and satisfied.
So…I need to hope it would really be like that safety demonstration if a mid-air catastrophe were to actually happen. To believe that we will look out for each other, hold each others’ hands in the dark, until the intercom crackles to life and the announcements arrive.
Judging from my experience of humanity, though, especially in light of recent events, I can much more easily picture a terrible sort of mayhem ensuing. People thrashing about in panic, grabbing each others’ masks, trampling over each other on their way to the escape chute, dragging their roller bags behind them over the backs of the crushed and the fallen.
Perhaps the survivors, if and when they emerge from the wreckage, will be so relieved with their narrow escape, so intoxicated with the precious idea of another chance at the world, that they will dedicate themselves to becoming kinder, smarter, better travelers. All we have is a wing and a prayer.
